Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

Hyperion offers both CDs, and downloads in a number of formats. The site is also available in several languages.

Please use the dropdown buttons to set your preferred options, or use the checkbox to accept the defaults.

Other recordings available for download

Reviews

Introduction

In the beginning of 1869 Mussorgsky had accepted the post of Assistant Chief in the Forestry Department of the Ministry of State Property, but he still managed to complete the first version of his monumental opera Boris Godunov by the end of the year. He wrote most of the songs (both words and music) that form The Nursery in the autumn of the following year; to these he added an earlier song S nyaney (‘With Nanny’), written in 1868, when the set was published by Bessel in June 1872. Two more songs—Kot Matros (‘Sailor the Cat’) and Poyekhal na palochke (‘On the Hobby-Horse’)—were completed later in 1872 and were published separately. The Nursery became one of Mussorgsky’s most popular works during his lifetime. It is even reported that after the then-famous soprano Aleksandra Molas performed the cycle at one of her concerts, dozens of copies of the pieces were sold at Bessel’s music shop.

Numerous sources refer to Mussorgsky’s liking for and affinity with children. Varvara Komarova-Stasova (niece of the influential critic Vladimir Stasov) remembers meeting the composer when she was a child of seven: she later recalled that ‘since he did not strike a pose with us and did not speak to us in that artificial language ordinarily used by adults with children … we began to consider him one of us. Kot Matros was one of a few songs he wrote that represent stories of our childhood.’ So Mussorgsky had brought the historical and theatrical realism (for which he became known in his operas) into everyday life by depicting, in music and words, scenes that he may have actually witnessed. The style of the songs is varied but typical of that of Mussorgsky’s maturity; he derived his language not only from folk music and the russkaya pesnya, but also from the romans, and from the Romantic masters of western European music such as Liszt. In his quest to discover the musical equivalent for the patterns, inflections and cadences of spoken Russian, Mussorgsky created eternally fresh yet haunting tableaux of domestic life.

Other albums featuring this work

'Joan Rodgers's live recitals of Russian song, and her earlier Tchaikovsky album for Hyperion, set up huge expectations for this disc of four song cyc ...'This is Hyperion at its best: a pair of fine artists exploring a less-than-familiar corner of the repertoire. More please!' (International Record Review)» More